The man who knew too little
by sammygirl312
Summary: Sable was just a regular girl, living a regular life, until he came into it like a tornado, turning everything upside down. She found him broken and lost, and as she tried to put him back together, she realized she needed him as much as he needed her. But how can you love someone you don't know, someone who doesn't know himself?
1. Chapter 1 - The man in the river

I shifted in my bed, and gazed wonderingly at the dark shape of the man lying next to me. I remembered that a few months earlier, I could spend hours tossing and turning restlessly, staring blankly at the ceiling of my bedroom, searching desperately for the rest that kept eluding me. Now, though, I didn't need to look for sleep. It came to me naturally.

He was lying on his side, back towards me. The room was dark, but the moonlight streaming through the window allowed me to make out the outline of his body; his broad shoulders, his long legs covered by a blanket. I knew he was wearing a tee-shirt which hid his scars, making him seem more normal.

I could hear him breathing peacefully. He wasn't always peaceful. It was quite rare, in fact. But nonetheless, he had given me a peace I had never dared to hope for.

Love was such a strange thing.

The man asleep next to me had turned my world upside down, yet he was now the anchor keeping me steady, just as I was his. He was now the only thing on which I felt like I could always rely. Maybe I was mad, maybe I didn't know him at all, but my heart told me otherwise. He was my sanity. And I was his. Who he used to be didn't matter, what mattered to me was who he was now. I loved who he was now.

I smiled, and my happiness was real. More real than I could have ever hoped, not so long ago.

In a way, I had fallen under his spell from the very first moment.

My smile faded when I thought back to the first time I laid eyes on Adrian. I felt an overwhelming urge to reach out, and wrap my arms around him. But I couldn't bring myself to wake him up. I loved watching him sleep. He seemed younger, more innocent.

But that first time I saw him, he could have been asleep, too. He had been asleep, in a way, except that he wasn't supposed to wake up. That simple thought chased away my joy, replacing it by the cold fear which always came, whenever I tried to imagine what could have happened to my Adrian.

 _He's there, Sable. He's alright and so are you. Calm down._

I took a deep breath and kept looking at him. My calm came back quickly. I always felt safe when I was close to him. I didn't know why, my instinct told me that he could protect me, no matter what.

Finally, I closed my eyes, just close enough to him to feel his heat. He was there. He wasn't going anywhere. He was safe.

Whoever he might have been in another life, he was Adrian, now. And he was mine. As long as he was by my side, everything would be fine.

 _ **Two months earlier**_

I took a deep breath and smiled. I wanted to enjoy every minute of my weekend. I didn't get a lot of time to rest away from work, even less in the company of my old friends.

I was far behind, as usual. Lilly walked with long, athletic steps, her long sculpted legs propelling her far ahead of me. She always led the way. All I had ever done was tag along.

I mainly stayed focused on my feet. Lilly had spent her week-ends hiking for so long, a little walk in the woods surrounding our town was nothing to her. My clumsiness, however, turned the simple task of walking into a real challenge. I kept my eyes on the ground, to make sure that the dead leaves covering the early autumn earth didn't hide any evil roots, waiting, poised for an opportunity to make me trip and seem ridiculous.

I almost never wore shorts, unlike Lilly who liked to show off her perfect legs. Even today, I had picked leggings over my friend's favorite outfit. My knees were covered in scars. Some small, some more obvious; they were remnants of all the times when I had fallen down and hurt myself. It became funny, after a while. I was so clumsy that I could be a danger to myself. My mother always told me it was cute – I had never quite believed it myself.

"Come on!" Lilly's cheerful voice broke through my thoughts. "Speed up, I'm falling asleep!"

She flashed a dazzling smile in my direction, then chuckled and turned away as I ran to catch up to her.

That smile of hers… back when we were in high school, it had brought most of the boys begging at her feet.

Lilly was beautiful. A sweet, innocent face, a perfect tan showing that she'd spent her summer outdoors, big brown eyes surrounded by long eyelashes, lips that just begged to be kissed. In a deep, dark corner of my mind, I had been relieved when she'd left. As much as I loved Lilly, no one would notice me as long as her heart-shaped face, framed by shiny blonde curls, was around.

I didn't need that much attention. But I did like it when people noticed that I existed.

A fresh breeze ruffled up my ponytail, and I tucked a loose strand of my light chestnut hair behind my ear. I grinned, a little breathless from our quick pace. Those woods were beautiful. I hated sport, but I still needed to take more time to come here. The wind blew melancholically through the brightly colored leaves, and everything was so peaceful. A little river ran through the woods, we were walking alongside it. Forgetting the dangerous roots, I allowed my eyes to get lost in the hypnotizing dance of the clear water.

I don't know why I didn't see him first. Maybe my mind had carried me to some other space. But I didn't think anything was wrong until Lilly froze in front of me, and I almost bumped into her. My annoyed comment was forgotten as I followed her horrified gaze to a human shape, carried towards us by the current. I cried out in surprise.

As the shape got closer, we realized it was a man. I knew that some people liked to take a dive in the river, even if I found it quite stupid.

But this man wasn't swimming. He wasn't moving at all, actually, and my brain took some time to connect the dots and know that something was truly, terribly wrong.

Lilly was quicker than me. While I was still frozen, she firmly shook off her jacket and stepped into the water, which wasn't very deep, but very cold. She shivered violently, but didn't let it slow her down. In a few moments, she had reached the man and grabbed him before the current carried his unmoving body further away. She called out, tried to talk to him, but he didn't react. I couldn't keep my eyes off of his face. He had long brown hair, spread out in the water, surrounding his features like a halo. He had a strong, stubborn jaw, and I couldn't ignore the fact that he was handsome, but one of his cheeks was covered by an ugly bruise, and small cuts covered his scarily pale skin. His eyes were shut… and from where I was standing in a shocked silence, he didn't seem to be breathing.

Then my gaze drifted down. My heart had skipped a few beats already, but at that moment, it stopped altogether.

The man's shirt was in shreds, allowing me to see the terrible cuts which crisscrossed over his sculpted chest. The river had apparently washed away most of the blood, but wounds like those could in no way be an accident.

Someone had done this to him. I hoped that I was wrong, but… this looked astonishingly like torture.

Lilly had probably reached the same conclusion as me, but she didn't lose any time. She pulled the man along with her, back to dry ground, trying to hold onto where he didn't seem to be injured in any way, which proved to be harder than it should.

No more than a terribly long minute later, the man was spread out on the leaf-covered ground before me, and Lilly tried to make him wake up.

She could save him, I told myself. She knew CPR, her parents were freaking doctors!

I felt like my heart was going to beat right out of my chest. I stared, fascinated, while Lilly tried desperately to make the man's heart start again, to breathe life back into that damaged body. But his eyelids remained firmly closed, his lips remaining slightly parted as if he was trying to whisper a few last words. He was terribly pale. I thought that all life had already left him. I didn't realize I felt anything else than panic or shock, until a strange wetness on my cheeks told me that I was crying.

I understood then that this sight was tearing me apart. The man didn't seem much older than me, and, in unconsciousness, his features looked so innocent… But not even the most corrupt and twisted man in the world would deserve to be treated this way. I couldn't imagine who this man was, or what had happened to him. But it was obvious that he had been tortured. Someone had tortured him to death, or close to it anyway, then thrown him into the river… for what purpose? So that the water would finish the job? Had he been too weak to swim, too desperate to try to save his life?

What could possibly drive someone to do such a thing? And why do it to _this_ man? What had he done to bring so much pain upon himself?

Curiosity was eating me up, but it was, by far, overwhelmed by the horror of seeing someone cut, torn, broken in so many ways. I felt a terrible need to help him, take that poor thing in my arms and heal him, make all his wounds, all his pain go away.

But I couldn't do that. I couldn't. It was too late. We found him, but it was too late. He was gone. Lilly's stubborn efforts didn't force his eyes open, didn't fill his lungs with the air that he would never breathe again. Fresh tears left my eyes at that thought. I wanted him to open his eyes, I wanted to know their color. I wanted to know if they lit up when he was happy, if they darkened when he was mad. But I would never know. He would never laugh or cry again.

I had never seen a dead person. I already knew that I would never forget it. At night, my sleep would be chased away by images of a tall body without movement spread out in the mud; of brown locks of hair floating in the water around a ghostly white face; of long cuts crisscrossing over a muscular chest, blood still oozing out of some of them.

I did not know this man, but I would still grieve for him – did he have a family? Would they ever know what had happened to him?

I hated unsolved mysteries. I already knew that once the sadness would drift away, frustration would follow in its wake – and frustration stayed much longer. I would never solve that puzzle. I would never even know the color of those eyes.

Everything inside of me wanted this complete stranger to live. I shook with fear, at the mere thought of losing someone that I had never met.

I had never believed in God. Or in anything, really. I hated religion, just in principle. I didn't like anything about it. The thought of praying had never come to my mind. But in that moment, as I saw Lilly's frantic movements slowing down, as I understood that she was close to giving up, I started praying, without even realizing it. I just knew I wanted nothing more than for this man to live to tell his story, to smile once more.

So I prayed with all my will, all my heart. I prayed for him to wake up, to heal, to _live_ again, safely.

Lilly finally stopped trying. Breathless, her face flushed, her eyes wide and watery, she sat down next to the man's immobile body – fell down more than sat, actually. She just stayed there, breathing heavily and staring at him, like me. We were both hoping for a sign, any sign, of life, even though we knew there was no rational hope left.

After a few moments of a desperate silence, Lilly looked up at me, and I knew that face meant it was over.

Maybe it should have been over.

But it wasn't.

As tears streamed over my cheekbones, now in a steady flood, the man suddenly moved, making me jump in shock, and Lilly cry out.

He gagged, turned suddenly on his side to cough up water, then started breathing. Loud, shaky, quick breaths, but as I rushed by his side and fell to my knees, they slowly steadied. Lilly and I exchanged unbelieving glances.

He was alive.

He was alive.

Through all of the tangled emotions running across my mind, the only one which stood out was an intense, devastating relief, and I couldn't even explain it.

The man was turned towards Lilly – it was frustrating, not being able to see his face now that he was conscious. All I could see was his back, barely covered by his shirt ripped to pieces. I could see more wounds there, and I could feel my heart break all over again. Everything in me told me that he did not deserve this.

I couldn't stop myself; I held out a hand and tentatively put it on his shoulder in a comforting gesture. He flinched, and I guessed it was mainly by reflex. I didn't know why, but I didn't step away. And I felt him relaxing.

He didn't turn around, though. His breathing wasn't quite as erratic as before, but it still seemed painful, difficult. I noticed Lilly regaining her usual composure, and glancing around us.

"We need to get him to a hospital," she told me in a calm but urgent voice.

I nodded, incapable of uttering a single word.

"There's no way he can walk back to our car," she pointed out, thinking out loud. "And we don't have any signal up here." She bit her bottom lip, I could almost see the wheels turning inside that big brain of hers. "Alright," she decided, "I know which way the road is. I'll run back there, try to get some signal. Otherwise I'll stop a car, get some help. Either someone will get an ambulance, or they'll help us carry him to a car."

I nodded again, feeling stupid as she got up with her usual determination, mixed with an urgency which wasn't quite as natural.

"Stay with him," she told me in an authoritative voice.

She didn't need to tell me that. There was no way I was leaving him alone.

I watched my friend run away and disappear into the trees. I hoped that she would be quick, that help would come. The man was alive, but he was still far from being saved. How much blood had he lost?

I had no way of knowing how much time passed with me unmoving, hand on his shoulder, and him turned away from my curious, worried eyes. But when the silence got on my nerves, I just had to say something.

"It's going to be all right," I promised, willing myself to believe it. "You're going to be fine."

He grunted in response.

Then, I moved, dragging myself in the dead leaves to sit in front of him. He lifted his eyes up to my face.

Hazel. Hazel eyes. Beautiful. The man didn't say a word, and his throat must have been so sore that it was certainly for the best – but he didn't need to speak to me, his eyes said everything. There was a whirlwind of emotion in them.

There was thankfulness. There was pain. There was fear. But, above all, he seemed lost. Completely lost.

"We found you in the river," I said in a soft voice, smiling at him with all the warmness that I could muster. "My friend is going to get help. You're going to be fine," I repeated, "you're safe now." I didn't know that. But I wanted it to be true. So it would be. For now, at least.

He closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again. I got lost in them.

He finally started breathing through his nose, and seemed to calm down a little.

After a while, I finally dared to ask:

"Who are you? What's your name?"

He stared at me for agonizingly long seconds. I didn't believe he was going to answer. I thought he didn't want to, he didn't trust me, he didn't really have any good reason to, right?

But when he opened his mouth, and I heard him speak for the first time, in a rusty, broken voice, I understood with a creeping fear that mistrust wasn't the reason for his silence.

"I don't remember," he told me. "I don't remember anything."


	2. Chapter 2 - The man without a name

**Chapter two. The man without a name**

I made it to the door to his hospital room this time, before stopping in my tracks once more. I had been pacing for what felt like a few never-ending centuries. Officially, I could visit him now, at last. But even though I had been waiting for that for a long time, now that it was possible I just couldn't find the courage to actually do it.

I was torn. My brain kept sending my legs orders which constantly contradicted one another; I changed my mind every few seconds. One instant I was charging towards the door, determined to open it and step inside; but before I knew it I was getting away from the room as if it was dangerous.

This time, the tip of my fingers had brushed the doorknob. I was so close, so close… then I got scared, and I almost ran down the corridor to get as far as possible from him.

Lilly's usual luck hadn't failed her when we needed it the most. She didn't get any signal, however, just when she reached the road, a car rolled past, before turning back and pulling up at the view of the panicked girl. She had persuaded the man inside to get to the town hospital and send back an ambulance. She gave instructions as to where to find us. Then she headed back to the stranger and me.

As we waited, he slowly fell back into unconsciousness. My brain didn't quite comprehend the situation I had gotten myself into, and I had no idea of how to help the injured man. So, at a loss for a better idea, I gathered up my courage and dared to hold his hand. Strangely, he didn't protest. In fact, before he slipped away, I could've sworn he returned briefly my reassuring squeeze. Of course, it was probably nothing more than my imagination.

When Lilly got back, his eyes were closed once more. That sight didn't panic me as much as before. The innocence had returned on his features, unconsciousness chasing away the fear and confusion, at least for now. My eyes didn't leave his face once, not when my friend returned, not when help arrived. I was forced away from him when they carried him away, and as soon as he was out of my sight, the angst came back. I couldn't do anything more, and that drove me insane. I needed to do something. For some reason, I couldn't tear my thoughts away from the stranger who would probably die soon.

I didn't get any sleep the night that followed. I spent restless hours tossing and turning in a bed which had rarely brought me anything else than bad dreams.

The next day, Lilly and I went to the hospital as soon as we could.

We had to admit that we weren't members of the man's family. But as he hadn't woken up yet, and they hadn't found any hint as to where to find people he knew, they still filled us in.

We were told that the man wasn't out of the woods yet, but that he had great chances of pulling through. He was a fighter, they said. And I just got more and more curious. Lilly settled for knowing that none of his injuries were lethal on their own, but that combined, they could have caused some nasty damage. Between his concussion, his broken ribs, his torn shoulder, and the multiple cuts and bruises, plus all the water which had found its way into his lungs, he was lucky to still be there. He was lucky we had found him in time. The blood loss alone was a serious problem.

Lilly came with me again the following day. No one could visit the patient yet, and he was still unconscious. The doctors said they had done everything they could, and that now the man would wake up when he was ready. He would survive, that was fairly certain at that point; however there was still no way to know for sure if his injuries would leave him with any lasting damage.

No one came to check on him; no panicked family, no anxious girlfriend, no one. He was alone. We knew him as nothing else than "John Doe".

I kept coming every day. Lilly didn't, she had better things to do. She got updates on the man from me.

When he finally woke up, it still took a day or two before I was allowed to visit him.

The doctors, as much as the police or myself, had hoped that the stranger would get his memory back at the same time as his lucidity. But I heard that he didn't. The mystery of his identity remained complete. My urge to see him again grew wildly. What did he look like when he wasn't on the brink of death? Was he okay? How could he be, he didn't even remember who he was… how could he not remember? His complete amnesia was pinned on his concussion, but I was told that it didn't make sense. It shouldn't have been bad enough to have such consequences. The man's condition was near to unexplainable.

Theoretically, only his family should have been allowed to see him now. But he didn't have any. And I was the only one around who seemed to care, even a little, about what happened to him; as well as one of the two who had saved his life. So, in the end, I was free to go talk to him.

I had waited for this chance from the start. I wanted it. So why hadn't I gathered the courage to go inside yet? By now my eyes knew every detail of the corridor.

I hated hospitals, always had. Luckily, this was the first time I had been stuck inside one for so long.

The man didn't know me. Why would he care if I visited him? Well, no one else had done it so far, maybe he would appreciate knowing that he wasn't alone…

But did he even remember me? If his whole life, all his memories of all the people he held dear, had slipped away from his mind, then how could he remember a stranger he met once?

But I had saved his life, after all. And in that brief time when he had woken up, he had seemed lucid enough. Maybe his memories started there, maybe he hadn't forgotten me…

Except that I hadn't actually saved his life, I reminded myself. Lilly had. She'd even been the first one to see him. So if he could recall one of us, it would certainly be her.

But Lilly wasn't here either, was she? _No one_ was here for him, except the hospital staff which seemed to have taken a liking to him. Something about the man seemed to inspire sympathy in people, I knew that from experience. That thought only made it more terrifyingly troubling, that someone had hated him enough to inflict all that pain… But I shook my head; I wouldn't think about that now.

I really _had_ to go see him, I told myself. This wasn't about me, and how wounded I would be if he greeted me with a "who are you?". This was about a man who had narrowly escaped death, and who was now left alone. No one deserved that. I couldn't actually help, but I would do whatever I could. I was incapable of just walking away, I knew that; and I couldn't spend the rest of my life pacing in that corridor, either.

I took a deep breath and rushed to the door. Then at last, before my temporary boldness could leave me, I pushed it open and stepped inside. Only then did it occur to me that I could've knocked beforehand. Well, now it was too late to think of politeness. Maybe next time?

I didn't look at the sinister white walls, I ignored the equipment and the lifelessness which I disliked so much in all hospital rooms. The only speck of color here was him.

He was awake. My entrance startled him, and he looked up with a surprise mingled with a slight fear, which seemed strangely close to a reflex. I guessed that if I was in his position, I wouldn't trust anybody.

I really should have knocked.

I was about to stutter embarrassed apologies; but as he stared at me, his eyes narrowed a little before lighting up. Then my heart skipped a beat when he smiled at me for the first time. A genuine, dazzlingly bright smile.

"I know you," he said in a voice filled with something quite like wonder.

I let out a happily relieved laugh. "Yes, we… met before. I…"

"You found me, right?" he interrupted me.

"Yes, me and my friend Lilly."

I grinned stupidly. It was ridiculous; why did a stranger make me feel happier than I had been in a really long time?

The man – John Doe? – seemed so happy to see me that my shyness was partly forgotten. I moved forward to stand right next to his hospital bed. Somehow it felt a little strange to have him look up at me. I had never seen him standing up, but something told me he was tall. And _I_ most certainly wasn't.

So… how did you start a conversation with an amnesiac stranger found half-dead in a river?

"How are you feeling?" I asked.

He shrugged. "Fine," he answered automatically.

"Right." I shot him my best _bitch-please_ look, and his smile turned sad.

"Well," he said quietly, "it could be worse… considering. I could be dead. Although," he sighed, "I wonder if that wouldn't be better."

Those words almost physically hurt. He avoided my eyes and silence stretched on for the few seconds during which I desperately searched for something to answer. However, he was the one to speak up again, this time with a mixture of cheerfulness and embarrassment.

"I'm sorry," he chuckled, "you don't need to hear this. I'm just… still a little confused."

"You have every right to be!"

He frowned thoughtfully. "Maybe it's my memory playing tricks on me again, but… I can't remember your name," he said slowly.

"Oh, that's normal – I never told you! I'm Sable."

"Well, Sable… I can't thank you enough for what you did."

I was confused for a moment, but he went on:

"I owe you my life, from what I hear." Our eyes met again, and the emotion his conveyed was so intense that I didn't breathe for a moment. "Thank you," he repeated, "thank you for saving me, thank you for being here… thank you for caring."

There was a knot in my throat, which prevented me from saying anything for a long while. With all the time I had spent pacing outside his room, I could've prepared myself, I could've found something to say, but… how could I have expected this? I didn't even think he'd remember me, let alone be thankful… And a simple "you're welcome" didn't seem quite like enough to me.

So I tried to get my own message across through my eyes. I don't know if it worked, but the return of John Doe's smile was enough of a reward to me.

When I finally managed to speak again, I croaked: "I'm not actually the one who saved you. My friend Lilly is the real hero here… _she_ saw you first, _she_ pulled you out of the water, _she_ brought you back…"

"Oh. That's strange," he said thoughtfully.

"Why?"

"Well, I don't remember her very clearly. Your face is my first real memory. That, and… pain." His eyes twinkled when he added: "Besides, Lilly isn't here now. You are."

A grin split my face.

He probably needed some rest, and I thought perhaps it would be best if I left soon. But I didn't want to. So in a moment of selfishness, I pulled up an uncomfortable chair which was just waiting in a corner, and I sat next to his bed.

For a while, all we did was look at one another with curiosity.

A ray of sunlight streamed through a small window and hit the back of his head, turning his hair into shiny golden-brown waves.

He had adorable dimples when he smiled so innocently. I couldn't imagine him able to harm anyone or anything.

He looked much better today. The bruise on his cheek had changed colors, and stayed there as a painful reminder, but it would be gone soon. He had a few stitches next to his left brow, but the other small cuts on his face were already disappearing.

As for his other injuries, I couldn't see them, except for the arm that he wore in a sling.

"So, you really don't remember anything?" I couldn't help asking.

He shook his head slowly. "Nothing."

"I'm sure it'll come back to you soon." I was trying to persuade myself as much as him.

"Maybe… so far I have no name, no past…"

"But you have a future."

"Well, I hope so. For now… I'm just John Doe." He cleared his throat. "Let's talk about something else. Otherwise, this conversation is going to get really depressing, really fast…"

"Alright," I said, even though I did want to talk about this. "Do you know when you'll leave the hospital?"

"In a week or two, apparently. I'll still need to check in regularly, but… I'll be free."

"Do you know where you'll go?"

He opened his mouth, closed it, then smiled sadly. "No."

I didn't even hesitate. What I had to do now seemed obvious to me.

"Well, why don't you stay at my place for a while? I have a spare bedroom."

His eyes widened in shock. "No," he protested immediately. "No way."

"Well, why not?"

I was almost offended.

"You've done enough already," he said. "I can't just barge into your life, you don't have to help me anymore."

"You're already a part of my life now," I insisted. "I'm not leaving you alone without a place to stay, I wouldn't forgive myself."

"But–"

"It's temporary," I interrupted him before he could find any arguments. "Just until you get your memory back, or until you build yourself a new life here."

We stared at one another for a long time. My eyes did not waver, and in the end he was the one who looked away.

"Fine," he sighed as I smiled victoriously. "Just for a little while."


End file.
